The Long Hall

It was the summer of 1985. Jill and I were taking the first steps into our thirties, and while our goals were still ambitious, they were no longer earthshaking. The dream of changing the world had begun to fade, and we had started to focus on the smaller world right around us. We wanted what everyone wanted: a safe home, a healthy family, a few good friends, enough money to pay the bills, and some time to enjoy it all. Measured against those criteria, we were doing well. We’d been married for almost four years, had bought a house in Connecticut, and were soon going to have a baby.

The circumstances leading up to those events, and the ordeal that followed, are the subject of a memoir I’ve recently finished. It took me nearly three decades to write The Long Hall. Not that I was working on it with anything that could be described as diligence. Mostly, I was avoiding the whole project, because it seemed like an insurmountable task to pin down the details and capture the thoughts and emotions. The truth is, I doubted that I could do it justice. The more time that slipped by, the less I wanted to go back and re-open the wounds. But it’s a story that deserves to be told, especially now that my daughter Allison is about to have a baby of her own.

The Long Hall recounts, in a series of eighty-five connected scenes, our adventures into both the mundane and the unimaginable. It’s filled with humor and heartbreak, a lot of good memories and a lot of unbearable ones, too. This excerpt is one of those scenes.

Braxton Hicks

Very close to the end of the pregnancy, we were out walking near our home. Jill had been having contractions, on and off, for days, and she thought activity would hasten things along. We went to the end of our short street, then followed a path that led to the public library. We spent about an hour looking through books and magazines, until Jill got restless and wanted to go home.

Outside, the sky had darkened and about a minute from the library, it began to rain hard. It was July, so the maple trees were thick with foliage. We noticed the ground was dry under each one, and we sprinted from tree to tree. But the rain turned into a downpour. The trees soon lost their battle with the torrent, the dry ground vanished, and we were getting drenched. About halfway home we realized there was no shelter and just ran the rest of the way, screaming and laughing — pretty much the same as we had months earlier, when we first spotted the doughnut in the plastic tube. We were soaked. We undressed just inside the front door and took a shower together. Our skin was cold from the rain, and the warm water mingled with the laughter, and with the unspoken sense that we were racing toward something that was racing toward us.

A few days later we watched the movie, The Competition, on television, then left for the hospital at eleven-fifteen. Jill’s bag was already packed because we’d been through this routine at least twice, thinking she was ready to deliver, only to find out it was false labor. When a baby is ready to arrive, the mother’s body begins a series of contractions in order to push the infant out. But prior to this process there is often a practice period, a dress rehearsal of sorts. It isn’t time to deliver, but it feels like the real thing. Women refer to these early contractions as Braxton Hicks.

“She wasn’t ready to go. She was having Braxton Hicks.”

Women are born knowing about these things. Men have to listen and learn through experience, passing through several stages of decreasing ignorance before they can comprehend what’s going on. The first time I heard of Braxton Hicks, I assumed it was the name of a medical office. Then I thought it might be some kind of rash. I rarely understand anything the first time around, but I eventually made the connection with false labor.

The key point, I guess, is that you don’t know it’s Braxton Hicks at the time. You only find out when you come home without a baby. With each false alarm, it seems more and more as though the real thing will never happen, even though some part of your mind knows it must. In a strange way, it was similar to watching someone endure a long terminal illness, the way I watched my father inch slowly downhill. You may think they’re about to die, then they pull back, and for a little while seem to be heading toward recovery. Each time, there is that sense of relief, because you’re never really ready. But now the contractions were closer together and felt different. I reminded Jill that she had said that before.

“It feels different,” she said.
“That’s what you said the last time.”
“But those weren’t real. This is real.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it feels different this time.”

We called the doctors’ office and the nurse told us to get to the hospital. So this was it. Here was that car ride I’d thought so much about, the one you see on television and you think, please don’t let it happen like that. I’d practiced it over and over in my mind. We’d done a trial run the week before. We’d been to the hospital for the new parents’ tour. We should’ve been ready, and we were. Everything was under control. My driving was smooth and effortless. We could have been going to the supermarket for a loaf of bread, except it was almost midnight, and you leave your house at that hour only for life-altering events.

After parking the car, I felt bothered for just a moment by the bright yellow EMERGENCY sign. I opened Jill’s door and she climbed out. Then we walked slowly through the doors of Bridgeport Hospital.

It was 11:40. The day we would have our first baby — July 12, 1985 — was itself about to be born. We were in that moment when everything changes. The bridge from here to there was twenty feet of linoleum. We stopped at the desk and answered questions. Name, address, insurance. A thin man in pale green scrubs appeared out of nowhere, steered a wheelchair up behind Jill, snapped the footrests into position, and pushed her toward the elevator. We had no way of knowing, but Jill had just walked the last twenty feet she would ever walk. Right there. That faded, scuffed stretch of hallway. She was thirty years old. I was twenty-nine. We had been on top of the world for the past four years. But the world rolls. Sometimes you roll with it, and sometimes it rolls on top of you.

I was surprised to notice that my hands were shaking. I was having one of those conversations in my head, like the one I have when I’m on an airplane that’s about to take off.

“There are thousands of flights just like this every day.”
“I know that.” (This is me talking to myself.)
“Every day of the year.”
“Yes.”
“Almost without incident.”
“True.”
“So what are you nervous about?”
“I didn’t think about those other planes. I wasn’t on them.”
“This plane will have a problem because you’re on it?”
“I should get off now and save these other passengers.”

It was the same conversation I’d had so many times while driving across bridges. Worrying that the bridge would fall actually prevented it from happening, because the coincidence of this massive structure giving way at the very moment I was thinking about it was too unlikely. Sure enough, I’d always made it safely across, along with hundreds of other drivers, all seemingly unaware that I’d just prolonged their lives.

Logic, of course, is on the side of the optimists. More than a hundred million babies are born each year. How often does something go wrong? Statistically, almost never. In only about three percent of all births, there’s a serious problem with either the mother or the baby. However, that still works out to thousands a day. We don’t hear about those incidents because they’re small and private. There’s no debris field or black box, no eighteen-wheelers doing headstands after a vertical drop. Just long hospital stays, years of struggling, quiet funerals. Newspaper headlines are reserved for airplanes slamming into mountains and bridges falling into rivers.

I followed as the attendant backed Jill into the elevator. There was something comforting about the way he shuffled his feet, and how he pushed the buttons without looking. Another night, another baby. Still, it felt like a dream, and not an entirely pleasant dream. For one thing, I was sure I’d never get used to seeing Jill in a wheelchair. For another, I hadn’t completely shaken that vision I’d been having, the one where I was in the grocery store with a newborn baby, and Jill wasn’t there. I was looking out the airplane window and could see the ground rushing up. I could feel the roadway sinking away as the bridge began to collapse. But I wasn’t sure if it was really happening, or if it was all in my head. I shuffled along with the attendant as he pushed Jill out of the elevator and into the future. I looked ahead, down the long hall, and tried to see where we were going. My heart was full, and racing. My movements, I knew, were calm and smooth, just as my driving had been between our home and the hospital. I was all right, and yet I was not all right. There was a wheel rotating inside my chest, turning to fear, then joy, then a hazy uncertainty, and back to fear. Not a panic attack, exactly, but something like it. A false panic attack. An emotional Braxton Hicks.

The Long Hall is 320 pages, and can be purchased for $12.95 from Amazon.com. The e-book edition is also available, for about $3.99 US, in any country where Amazon has a Kindle store.

If you have found any enjoyment and derived any value from this blog, I think you will like the memoir just as much. I hope so. Thank you for reading, and for helping me get the word out about this book.

I wanted more – it’s well written. I wanted to know more of your story – it must have been very difficult to write – to get the details in the right order and to process your feelings and all. Nice work.

I was reading this as I walked around my house, going about my morning business. At one point, I stood still, couldn’t move, had to focus, read faster, see what happens. You know the point. Excellent writing!

This is a huge accomplishment, congrats on your book. You are brave to write about these moments. I can’t imagine how painful reliving them must have been for you. Thank you for sharing part of your life with us, I look forward to reading more.

Darla, you know as well as anyone how daunting it is to write about these major life moments. But something compels us to do it, and after we’re done, we feel as though we’ve moved, again, to a new place.

I finished reading your book (I read it in two days, couldn’t put it down). I want to thank you for sharing this part of your life with us. Your writing is incredible. I really don’t have adequate words to convey how much Jill’s story touched me. I went through so many emotions reading about your life together and I will never forget it. As a matter of fact, I think of her and you often. I’m viewing life and love and death in a new way. Thank you.

I sincerely hope that writing about it has brought some peace to your mind. And congratulations on the impending grandbaby. Enjoy every minute!

This will be hard to read, but I know not nearly as hard as it was to write. I am so grateful that you were able to do it, though, as it all still feels like a bad dream. Jill was such an amazing woman and an energizing force in our family, and she truly was my best friend. I know this book will do justice to who she was and what you two had together. I hope that Allison gets even more of a sense of what a great mother she has, and I know she will be just as great.
❤ Where there's a Jill, there's a way ❤

I have been following your blog for years, and have always enjoyed your writing because it is honest and heartfelt. I just purchased “The Long Hall” on Amazon and can’t wait to start reading it. Thank you for letting your readers into such a personal aspect of your life. I can’t imagine it was easy, but I am sure it will be worth it.

I just downloaded your memoir and cannot wait to devour it cover-to-cover! Based on the excerpt, and on the quality of your regular posts, I know it will be well-written and full of truth and love. But I also know it will break my heart. Life often does. Our memoirs both begin in the summer of 1985 and took decades to write! Yours will, no doubt, leave me breathless.

I have tears already. I will be purchasing your book today, and perhaps in a few weeks you will do me the honor of signing it. I’m sure it took tremendous courage to share your story and to “re-open the wounds,” but I am equally sure that you did so with the beauty and eloquence, humor and insight that I have come to expect and admire in your writings.

From one of my favorite poems, “On Joy and Sorrow” by Kahlil Gibran:
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

Peace be with you, my friend, and congratulations on publishing yet another book, and congratulations, too, on the upcoming birth of your grandchild!

Charles, I read your memoir on Sunday. It is a testament to your immeasurable heart that you could create something so beautiful from the darkest corners of an impossible experience. Your humor and wit are as ever-present as your compassion and integrity. My life is richer for sharing this chapter of yours.

Congratulations on the publication Charles. I can tell from your excerpt (which left me with a lump in my throat) that the book is a well-written honest memoir. I can’t wait to read it. I’ve already downloaded it.
much love
rosie

This is a book I want to physically hold. I shall endeavour to get a copy sent here. Your writing holds an immediacy and an openness and honesty not often found. Charles, you move me. Your blog posts so often bring smiles and laughs to accompany the factual, pragmatic truths of life and now this small excerpt from your memoir, without warning, hurls me into an emotional, breath-holding journey. You are a master! Thank you for introducing me to this next level in you. .

Well, probably you told us on your blog at some point, but that’s not exactly how I knew because I never remember anything for that long. But it was a feeling I had, perhaps the length of time that would pass between posts? It’s that intuitive thing, I guess.

Hello there. Allison and I were good friends growing up in Danbury and as a kid I felt so sad that Allison’s mother wasn’t around and that she was sick. I never knew the whole story, and never wanted to ask. You raised a very strong and kind daughter and thank you for all that you did for me as a kid. Your excerpt stirred a very intense emotion in me and I’d like to read the rest. Take care!

I remember you, Betsy, but didn’t know you and Allison were still in touch. She had a few wonderful friends in Danbury, and you were certainly one of them. I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for the thoughtful comment.

I am just about half way through – excellent writing on a very difficult subject. It’s hard to imagine going through that and I commend your ability to be able to share that story. Not sure I could approach a subject like that with skill and grace you have.

However, I am going to finish reading the book before I give it 5 stars on goodreads and amazon. 😉

Best of luck to you, too, Sonia. I feel as though I abandoned you with your most recent book, but I’m glad you went ahead and published it, anyway. I just bought the Kindle version, and promise to finish reading it this time.

No problem….. It had to go through a million edits after I gave you the manuscript, so it is just as well… I look forward to reading your story….. and are you….. ahem…. going to put a piece in the local paper and do an author signing at the bookstore? I’m re-editing my other book now, and once its available again, I’ll try to do some promotion….. Good luck!!!! P.S. I’ll come to your book signing in the interest of solidarity.

I’m so proud of you for finishing this, Charles. You know how eager I am to read it. I know, however, that it will be difficult for me because, even knowing what I know, I read the excerpt with dread. For a brief period of time, I watched you doing a wonderful job raising a wonderful Allison. I know her parenting will honor both you and Jill. I’m off to Amazon now to order my copy and I look forward to the day you can sign it for me in person.

I don’t think I will ever be able to clearly express what a gift this book has been for me. You have given me a chance to get to know my mom, and you, in a way that was never really possible. Not only that, but you have allowed me to feel her presence at a time when every woman wants her mother – just when she is about to become a mother. Now I am able to imagine what she might say or do, and it’s because of your strength and courage to write this story, and the clarity in which you have done so, that I can do that. I am so proud of you, and I am so proud to call you my father.

If what you say is true, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Your Mom would have been immensely proud, as I am, of the person you are. And I know you will be exactly the kind of mother she wanted so much to be.

Wow!! I seriously can’t wait to read more—l’ll buy it as soon as I get home! Congratulations, Charles!! What a big moment for you, and huge congrats on being an impending granddad!! I’ll be a step-granny in end of March and cannot wait!

You told me once that you didn’t think ‘riveting’ described your writing (I think that was the word). Well, it is. Your excerpt above is excellent, compelling. I was left wanting to read more. Now I’ll just have to wait for it in the mail. I just ordered it.

I imagine most memoirs are difficult to write, and there’s a tendency to avoid doing it for as long as possible. But some things just have to be written, and in the end, it’s a constructive and rewarding process.

I just finished the book and cried uncontrollably. To know her was to love her. Your book is filled with every human emotion. I know you didn’t write it for any self recognition or self gratification. But words like bravery, honor, loyalty and love only scratch the surface of this story. She is my saint and you are my hero.

I’m glad we got to spend some time together back then, Nick. Happy memories of the past can cause a hollow feeling in the present, but it’s still better to have those memories. In the end, that’s all we have. Thank you for the beautiful comment, and for the time we had with our families this summer. I hope we can maintain that level of contact from now on.

Charles, I am so happy to see this account of your life now has a home in a published book. I cannot wait to read it. I checked out your listing on Amazon, and noted the beautiful review left for you from your daughter. My children are still young enough that I remember their births with vivid detail (though perhaps I always will), and I hope you know what a treasure, what a gift this book is for your daughter, in connecting her as she said with her mother. You are brave to have conquered the writing of such a story, and I thank you for sharing it with us.

I finished the book today during chemo. And wow! I have been riveted and couldn’t put this book down since I started reading it a couple of days ago. I admire your courage and dedication in getting the words on the page (and e-reader). I left reviews on Goodreads (as myself) and on Amazon.com (I’m Grandma Zona – long story!) I am just blown away still. I can’t even start on another book until the emotions and tears settle down.

Charles, where do you find the time to write a post every week then go on to write a 320-page memoir?! And knowing you, I’m positive that the first 120 pages aren’t blank. filled with grocery lists from 1971, nor recipes for gingerbread men made with gingko biloba. I’m going to get my copy now and look forward to reading it. Congratulations!

I finished the book a couple of days ago, but couldn’t find the words to express how I feel. I still can’t. But thank you for writing the story and for sharing it again with all of us. Your descriptions of Jill before and after the stroke bring her to life again. I laughed and cried and was emotionally drained, but also renewed. I have always admired you for how you were always there for Jill and how you raised a baby by yourself. Allison is a wonderful woman and I know how proud of her you are. And she is also proud of you, as I am. I also want to compliment you on your writing. It wasn’t just the story, but how you put it together that held my eyes to the page. It was a good book. ❤

Charles, I just finished your book.I found myself hiding my kindle under my desk at work yesterday so I could keep reading. It’s hard to write something here without sounding trite; I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to write this book. But, I thank you for sharing it with the world and giving us a glimpse of who you and Jill were. After reading the last page I felt sadness as well as happiness for what you, Jill and Allison accomplished through love and determination. And congratulations to Allison!

Charles, I don’t know what to say in the light of such powerful emotion, depth and strength with which you have brought Allison to this point where she is about to become a mother herself. My best wishes to you all and I salute your fine work indeed. Off to shop at Amazon now!

Reading through your blog posts, one can never really know the challenges you have faced in your life… I can not even begin to comprehend what a challenge it must have been to write this down… It was heartbreaking to read through the post, and the comments. Wish you, and Allison joy and peace.

Charles, congratulations on publishing this book. I heard about it on “She’s a Maineiac’s” blog. Since you are one of my favorite bloggers I look forward to reading it…although I don’t think it’s going to be a humorous book.

I recently finished your book. I absolutely loved it. I loved your devotion to Jill even in the tough times, you never gave up on her, even though you had to make decisions which i am sure were very difficult for you to make.